


The Colour of a Soul

by FrenchKey, JayofOlympus



Series: WinterHawk Week 2019 [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Ass Grabbing, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Idiots in Love, M/M, Nudity, Platonic Soulmarks, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, They Might be Idiots But at Least They Used Their Words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 22:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20749952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchKey/pseuds/FrenchKey, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayofOlympus/pseuds/JayofOlympus
Summary: The people who mean the most to you leave marks, not just on your soul, but on your skin. Family, friends, lovers, soulmates. Patches of colour showing where you first touched, skin to skin. The problem is that not everyone's first touches are shaking hands or patting shoulders. Sometimes people are clumsy. Like Clint.'The one place Bucky hadn’t expected to leave his colour was right in the middle of Clint Barton’s forehead.'





	The Colour of a Soul

**Author's Note:**

> For WinterHawk Week 2019, Day 3, prompt 'Soulbound'. Enjoy!
> 
> Clint - purple  
Bucky - navy blue  
Nat - red  
Steve - sky blue  
Phil - steel grey  
Kate - lilac  
Tony - gold  
Pepper - burnt orange  
Barney - reddish

Clint has marks from Nat, Phil, Kate, Barney, and Tony. No others. He has a gold fingerprint on the back of his head that you can only see when his hair is freshly cut, from Tony poking at him, curious to see if he’d leave a mark behind. There’s a red handprint on his arm from where Nat grabbed him when they were fighting that first time, desperate and terrified, and both entirely sure this mission would be their last. Nat had asked him, once, if he wished that the mark hadn’t shown until she took his hand, but he’d just laughed. He has a reddish line on his chest from Barney, hesitantly trailing a single finger down his sternum, awed by how tiny a baby could be. Phil left a smudge of steel grey on the small of his back, where his shirt had ridden up while Phil was helping him to his feet. There’s a patch of lilac on his elbow where Kate bumped him, laughing and joking about him being an old man, right up until she saw the colours and immediately panicked about it. She’d gotten less flaky since then, and so had he. Neither of them had many people in their lives they’d left their colours on, and knowing that she really did see him like a big brother (or super old uncle, as she liked to put it) meant a lot.

Bucky has swirls of colour mixing all over his flesh hand and shoulder, remnants of wrestling around with the Howling Commandos, and gentle touches from his mother and sisters. Steve’s sky blue blazes in a smear across his cheek, matching the one on Steve’s forearm, gained when they were pushed together the first time Bucky waded in to pull Steve out of a fight. They’d been six. He has a solid circle of red on his sternum from Nat’s elbow in the sparring ring. It had taken a long time for that memory to return. It had been the last time he’d seen Nat until the mission in Odessa. Tony’s golden fingerprint sat just above the seam of his metal arm and the back of his neck held a swirl of burnt orange from Pepper helping him learn to braid his hair out of his face. He likes being able to look in the mirror and see the marks people have left on his soul, the proof that he still has a soul. Even better is being able to look and see the evidence of his navy blue marks on others.

The one place Bucky hadn’t expected to leave his colour was right in the middle of Clint Barton’s forehead. The man was a danger to himself, really. How he managed to be so cool and collected in the field and be such a walking disaster the second a mission was over was a true mystery.

‘Owwww, floor, no,’ Clint complained from where he was sprawled on the locker room tiles.

Bucky blinked down at him. ‘What the fuck, Barton?’ he asked, holding out a hand to help him up and trying not to stare at the slightly oval smear of blue that his elbow had left behind, or at his very naked body.

It wasn’t his fault, really. Who could blame him? He’d sensed something coming towards him, and he’d turned to intercept it. It’s just that he’d intercepted Barton’s head, ‘cause the guy was tripping right out of the damn shower cubicle. Bucky hastily wrapped his towel around his waist, glaring down at the human trainwreck on the floor.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ Clint said, rubbing at his head. ‘Didn’t mean to grab _you_, just grab something to stop me falling and dying. I don’t wanna die in the shower. It’s embarrassing.’

‘More embarrassing than grabbin’ my _ass_ to keep from dyin’?’ Bucky asked, raising an eyebrow.

‘At least it looks pretty in purple?’ Clint ventured, then immediately slapped his hand over his face with an embarrassed whimper.

Bucky twisted his arm to look at his elbow. Sure enough, there was no smudge of purple to match the blue on Clint’s head. It wasn’t common to have asynchronous soul colours but it also wasn’t unheard of. It tended to happen when two people reached out and made contact in two separate places simultaneously. Clearly Clint had grabbed his ass at exactly the same moment he’d hit him in the head with his elbow. Because apparently the universe hated Bucky.

‘Are you tellin’ me that there’s a purple handprint on my ass?’ Bucky asked, incredulous.

Clint gave him a sheepish grin. He still hadn’t gotten around to covering up, and Bucky very deliberately kept his eyes on Clint’s face. They absolutely weren’t going down that route right now.

‘Maybe?’ Clint said. ‘Or, um, maybe two?’

Bucky blinked, still staring down at Clint. ‘I have two great big purple handprints on my ass. For the rest of my life. What the fuck, Barton?’

‘It was an accident?’ Clint said, looking embarrassed but unrepentant.

He was still naked. Bucky was failing to ignore that fact. He was trying, but it was very obvious. He really hoped it _wasn’t_ obvious how much he was enjoying the sight in front of him.

‘Well, I feel less guilty about getting you in the forehead, at least,’ Bucky grumbled, turning around and rummaging aimlessly in his gym bag.

Clint startled and frantically looked around for the closest mirror. ‘Aww, forehead, no,’ he whined, flopping dramatically onto his back. Bucky started to pay even closer attention to the contents of his bag. He was _not_ looking.

The mark he’d left wasn’t exactly the biggest mark out there, but it was in a pretty obvious spot, and pretty damn vibrant to boot. This wasn’t the faint kind of mark left by an acquaintance that would become a friend. Less a brush of watercolour, and more of a bone deep mark, a tattoo telling everyone just how important this person is to you. To have left that kind of mark on Barton was… He couldn’t figure it out.

He shuffled himself into one of the toilet cubicles for some privacy and dropped his towel. He had to perform some of his more acrobatic maneuvers to get a good look at his own backside, but he managed without too much difficulty. Clint hadn’t been joking. There were two clearly defined handprints spanning the globes of his ass. The fingers trailed up to the small of his back and the thumbs wrapped inwards in a particularly lewd position. The prints were just as dark and indelible as the one he’d left on Clint. Bucky groaned and thumped his head onto the stall door.

‘You ok in there, man?’ Clint’s voice asked from outside. ‘Sorry. I know I’m… it’s not what you wanted. Sorry. I’ll just…’

‘No, it’s fine,’ Bucky said, talking more to the door than anything. ‘I just… This is stupid. This isn’t how this was meant to happen.’ Of all the ways for Clint to have found out, this was probably the worst.

‘I’m sorry,’ Clint said, and Bucky could hear rustling, like he was rummaging through his bag. ‘I’m so stupid. You shouldn’t… You weren’t meant to know,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I didn’t mean to mess things up, but I get it if you don’t wanna be around me.’

That sounded an awful lot like… Bucky hauled the door open and came face to face with Clint, who was in the middle of putting his sweatpants on. The sudden opening of the door clearly startled him and he wobbled, tried to correct, and pitched forward, right into Bucky’s arms, thankfully managing to yank his sweatpants up to his hips as he went.

‘What wasn’t I meant to know?’ Bucky whispered, staring down at Clint.

Clint closed his eyes, bracing himself as he straightened and stepped back. ‘You’re gonna make me say it? After seein’ the colour I left on you?’ He looked pained by the thought, wrapping his arms around himself. Red on his forearm crossing over lilac on his elbow, both covering the muddy reddish line down his sternum. Like he was trusting Nat to cover all his other weaknesses. Like he was trying to hide his weaknesses from _Bucky_. ‘I’m halfway in love with you, and I know it’s not what you want to hear from me. I’m sorry. I never wanted to make things weird. If you don’t wanna hang out anymore, that’s fine. I just… I was happy to just be your friend.’

Bucky stared at him for a moment. Clint was standing there in his sweatpants and bare feet, cradling his heart in his hands and begging Bucky not to destroy it.

Bucky reached out, giving Clint time to back away and brushed his thumb across the mark on his forehead. 

‘Maybe you happened to see the colour I left on you?’ he asked, quiet. ‘You ain’t the only one halfway to love here. Just never thought you’d be interested, you know?’ he said, shrugging.

Clint stared deep into his eyes, still guarded, but the tension in his shoulders eased just a little. ‘You… I… Why?’ he croaked, incredulous.

‘Barton… Clint… Have you met yourself? You’re so kind to everyone you meet. That was the first thing I noticed about you. You were kind to me when everyone else was still shit scared that I’d kill ‘em if they moved wrong. And you’re smart and funny and damn good at what you do. Why wouldn’t I fall for you?’ Bucky asked in return.

Clint shook his head, but he was smiling shyly. ‘Maybe ‘cause I’m a dumbass who does shit like grab your ass ‘cause I fell out the shower?’ Bucky opened his mouth to protest, but Clint carried on. ‘I just… I didn’t wanna make you uncomfortable, especially when you didn’t really have too many other friends, and you never seemed interested, so I figured it’d be easier if I just kept it to myself.’

‘Trust me,’ Bucky rumbled, ‘I’m interested. Didn’t really get what you’d see in me an’ it didn’t seem worth losin’ you over, was all.’

‘You didn’t get what I’d see in a super hot supersoldier who goes out of his way to make everyone else comfortable, even if it means you’re not?’ Clint said, shaking his head again. ‘Okay, so we’ve both been stupid about this.’ He stepped closer, leaning into Bucky’s space.

‘What do you say we quit being stupid then?’ Bucky whispers before leaning in and closing the distance between their lips.

‘Yeah, I’d be alright with that,’ Clint said, breathless, when they broke apart.


End file.
